Breaker device



May 17, 1960 G. E. GARD 2,936,909

BREAKER DEVICE Filed Sept. 23, 1957 INVENTOR GEORGE E. CARD wbwdw ATTORNEY BREAKER DEVICE George E. Gard, East Hempfield Township, Lancaster County, Pa., assignor to Armstrong Cork Company, Lancaster, Pa., a corporation of Pennsylvania Application September 23, 1957, Serial No. 685,653 1 Claim. (Cl. 214-85) placed in a stack for the purpose of redistributing the moisture through the mats and throughout the stack. This is described in my copending patent application, Serial No. 560,942, filed January 24, 1956, now Patent No. 2,870,543.

In this type of arrangement the wet mats are supplied to the top of the stack by means of a pusher arrangement, and the partially dried mats are removed from the bottom of the stack by an oscillating ejector. In removing partially dried mats of starch-bound fibrous sheet material from a stack comprising a plurality of'such mats in face-to-face engagement with one another, it has been difiicult to slide the bottom mat from the stack due to 2,936,909 Patented May 17, 1960 "ice mats are fed sequentially onto the top of the stack. In

order to keep the device operating continuously each time a mat is supplied to the top of the stack, a that must be ejected from the bottom of the stack. This ejection operation is performedby the ejector 4 which has a fiat surface on which the stack rests. This flat surface is not continuous but may be comprised of a plurality of fingers which extend through under the stack and support the same. At the one end of the fingers, there is a shoulder 5 of sufficient magnitude to engage the edge of the tile to slide it from the bottom of the stack. Inasmuch as the stack rests on the ejector, the stack will, of course, reciprocate with the ejector to the extent permitted. It has been found desirable to permit the stack to oscillate with the ejector to a limited extent. The extent of reciprocation of the stack is determined by the distance between the two buckboards 6 and 7. As the ejector 4 moves forward to eject a mat from the bottom of the stack, the entire stack travels with the ejector until all the mats except the bottom one engage the buckboard 6. This buckboard 6 is disposed at an acute angle with respect to the path of travel of the stack so that the top mat of the stack will strike the buckboard first.

This limits the path of travel of the top mat, but the second mat can travel slightly farther before it strikes the buckboard. Inasmuch as the moving force for the I stack is at the bottom of the stack, the bottom of the stack will attempt to move with the ejector until all of the mats engage the angularly inclined buckboard 6. The

angle of the buckboard is sufiiciently great to cause each the fact that the surfaces of the mats tend to adhere to I one another so that an excessive amount of force must be exerted by the ejector to break the bond between these flat surfaces. This excessive amount of force damages the mats by breaking the edges to such an extent that defective material results.

This invention is particularly useful in the manufacture of fibrous materials such as acoustical material made from mineral wool fibers with a starch binder. In the particular portion of the dielectric dryer here under consideration, the mats are stacked one on top of the other for a thickness of six or eight mats to redistribute the moisture and the reason for stacking is to create a pressure vessel effect in the stack of mats.

The purpose of this invention is to provide a device whereby the mats in the stack will be shuttled with respect to one another during each cycle of movement of the ejector for removing a mat from the bottom of the stack. This prevents the mats from adhering to one another and greatly reduces the amount of force required to remove the bottom mat from the stack.

An object of this invention is to provide a device whereby a plurality of mats may be stacked in face-to-face relationship to one another in a magazine and shuffled each time a mat is removed from the magazine to prevent sticking of the faces of the mats to one another.

In order that this invention may be morereadily understood, it will be described in connection with the attached drawing in which:

Figure l is an elevational view of the magazine in its extreme position at the left-hand side of its path of travel, and

Figure 2 is an elevational view of the magazine in its extreme position at the right-hand side of its path of travel.

mat to shuffie, breaking the bond between adjacent faces so that the mats are free to shift with respect to one another. The angle of the buckboard must be sufficiently great to prevent the shock from being taken up on the edges of the mats.

The rear buckboard 7 is disposed at an acute angle also with respect to the direction of travel of the stack but is of the opposite slope as the slope of buckboard 6. This means that when the ejector is being withdrawn for its next cycle of operation, it carries with it the entire stack until the top mat strikes the buckboard. Continued movement of the ejector causes the second mat to strike, then the third, and so on down the line until the last mat in the stack strikes the buckboard.

This continued reciprocatory movement of the ejector and the shufliing of the mats in the stack each time the ejector reciprocates causes the mats to be continuously shuffled with respect to one another so that it is impossible for a bond to be established between the faces of the mats which would militate against the ejector removing the bottom mat from the stack.

It will be clear from the above description that I have developed a device whereby the individual mats in a stack which would ordinarily adhere to one another are continuously shufi'led while stacked face to face to prevent the establishment of a bond between the surfaces of adjacent mats in the stack.

I claim:

In a device of the type described, the elements comprising, a reciprocating slide for carrying a magazine of mats, means for imparting reciprocatory motion to said slide, means for supplying a plurality of mats sequentially to said magazine, and means for removing a mat from the bottom of the magazine on each reciprocation of the slide,

and restricting means positioned at each end of the path of travel of said magazine for engaging the individual mats in said magazine to impart motion to the individual mats with respect to one another, the restricting means 2,986,909 a a t at one end of the magazines path of travel being dis- References cum in the file of this patent posed at an acute angle with respect to the direction of I the path of travel of the slide and the restricting means UNITED TA PATENTS at the other end of the path of travel being disposed at 2,104,671 Pierce Jan. 4, 1938 an angle of opposite slope. 5 2,693,742 Hartman Nov. 9, 1954 

